


Take Me Home

by kuiske



Series: Close [2]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Ace!Thorin, Angst, Asexual Character, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, dead child mention, dworin week on tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 09:50:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4258833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuiske/pseuds/kuiske
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>On nights like these he missed his home so badly he had to fight tears burning at the back of his throat.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>(Dworin week day 3 - The Road. Follow-up fic for Midsummer)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Me Home

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I'm not making profit with this. All rights to their respective owners.

Thorin should not have been fond of early spring.

It was almost a childish whimsy, a guilty pleasure that went against all reason and his own better judgement. The winter food storages were dwindling and there was often nothing to replenish them with, not when heavy wet snows made hunting impossible and the Mannish farmers didn’t have anything to sell for any kind of price. Even on a good year there was hardly a surplus of food at this time, and on a bad year they struggled to scrape up enough food to keep their children alive until proper thaw. It had been far worse still in the first wandering years of their exile when they couldn’t store up food even as much as they could in Ered Luin. He had learned to take grim comfort in his nephews’ bad temper and easy crying, because children with the strength to scream were children not in immediate danger. Thorin doubted anyone who had been there would ever not be haunted by the first child of theirs that had died on the road. He had been tucked to sleep between his parents for warmth against the cold night, and warm he had been come morning, but sometime during the night his heart had beat its last. Hunger was a slow and silent killer and so was cold, but they were as deadly as dragon-fire nevertheless.

And yet, when the Sun set from a cloudless sky and the winter claimed the world back for the night, Thorin loved this season he should’ve dreaded. On nights like these he missed his home so badly he had to fight tears burning at the back of his throat.

He had climbed up on a small terrace on the mountainside on the edge of their settlement. Thorin sat down leaning against a boulder and watched idly as rivulets of snowmelt running down bare rock slowed down and froze when the temperature dropped. Back in Erebor he had used to slip out of the Mountain sometimes, near one of the Northern ventilation shafts where he was strictly speaking not allowed to go. Sometimes he’d brought a book, but usually he had just ran his fingers across stone and watched as the little streams that fed the River Running turned into ice. Stone was beautiful covered in a thin sheet of clear ice, and never mind he’d once nearly broken his neck slipping on it. Thorin closed his eyes and breathed in deep the distinct sharp scent of water freezing on stone. It was pure and clear, almost sweet, and for a brief moment it helped him reach across the miles and years separating him from the Lonely Mountain.

He knew he wasn’t the only one who longed for the home they had lost. Dís barely remembered the golden halls she had been born in, but sometimes Thorin would catch her fiddling with the green stones set in her rings and ear-cuffs, her face turned eastward. She had loved to play with stones as a child, and the jewel-cutters had indulged the tiny princess by giving her unpolished gems and pieces of gold-veined rock to play with. She’d used to stuff her pockets with them, along with bits of plain stone she’d found on the floor. Dís worked in the forge alongside himself and Dwalin, but Thorin knew she’d probably have chosen stone over metal had the dragon never come. She wasn’t as sentimental as even Thorin admitted to being, but the pieces of stone she’d carried out from the mountain in her pockets she had kept. The diamonds, rubies and sapphires had been sold to see them fed, but the stone alone held value to no one save for themselves. She had carried them several times across the continent and finally cut, polished and set them herself.

Dís had given a piece to Thorin when he had come of age on the road where there could be no celebration to mark the event. He had accepted the gift with trembling fingers, and to the day he had yet to receive one he’d have valued higher. He’d worked the gift into a piercing, and the fine dust that was left from polishing it he’d mixed into tattooing ink. It had felt right, having home cut deep into his skin with bloodied needles. He resisted the urge to run his fingers over his left collarbone where a raven spread its wings and reached towards his heart. The raven’s stone-eye gleamed green instead of black and sometimes he felt like it was pulling him towards east, whispering, calling for him to come back home. Maybe Dís heard the same call.

Thorin’s heart clenched at the memory of her at the healer’s tents in Azanulbizar, helping where she could while waiting for her family to return. Only Thorin had. They couldn’t lay their dead in stone as would have been proper, but Dís, still half a child, had offered two pieces of stone she carried with her to lay on Thrór and Frerin before they burned, and then a third yet to Balin for Fundin’s sake. The King, the Prince, the Captain of the Guard - Grandfather, Brother and Cousin - they burned with a tiny shard of home laid over their hearts. Dís was as precious and rare as a vein of mithril even back then, she’d have deserved better than exile and widowhood at young age.

Thorin sat there for a long time lost in his thoughts. He didn’t even bother opening his eyes upon hearing familiar footsteps approaching.

“You know, I could’ve been an assassin,” Dwalin pointed out as he hauled himself to the terrace with ease and plopped down next to Thorin. “Little more alert couldn’t hurt.”

Thorin opened his eyes just so he could throw an amused look at Dwalin.

“I heard you and I know what you sound like. If you came here to murder me I probably did something to deserve it.”

“Not funny.”

Thorin smiled at Dwalin briefly and fell silent. Dwalin sensed his mood and probably guessed the cause for it, because he didn’t try to carry on with the conversation.

There were moments Thorin envied Dwalin for the effortless ease of his existence. He was certain of himself, content in a way Thorin didn’t know how to be. Truer than steel, strong, kind and loyal to the last. Sometimes the dwarf sitting next to him felt altogether more solid than the rock he was leaning against. Mostly Thorin was just grateful to have him by his side. Other people might have tried to cheer him up with talk of how well they were doing here, and someone truly stupid might even have tried to tell him they were sure they’d take back the Lonely Mountain one day. Dwalin knew better than to offer him empty words. Thorin knew precisely how well they were doing, down to the last coin and grain of barley they owned. Every year the exiles from Erebor felt more well-settled among their Broadbeam and Firebeard cousins, and every year the hope of ever seeing Erebor again dwindled a little more. There was nothing Thorin could do about Erebor, however, so he spoke for his people the best he could, helped keep them fed and employed the best he could, and took out his helpless fury on the glowing steel in his forge the best he could.

Thorin was aware he wasn’t very good company right now, but his friend seemed not to care. _Friend_. Dwalin was something more than his friend, surely. _Love_ was a word almost too dangerous to be even thought of, let alone spoken out loud. It was something inescapable like an oath coursing through his veins, but try as he might Thorin couldn’t think of any other word to describe how he felt about Dwalin. _Lover_ wasn’t a right term, though, and _partner_ felt too impersonal. _His_. Even that felt presumptuous. He had no idea what someone like Dwalin saw in him besides his liege-lord he was oath-sworn to follow. Some nights when Dwalin was away Thorin would lie awake fighting the dread that all they had was simply duty, though the sensible part of him knew he was dishonouring Dwalin with such thoughts. When he was present Thorin couldn’t explain away the soft look in his eyes when he looked at him. 

Dwalin leaned in and nudged the side of Thorin’s head with his nose. He had a way of knowing when Thorin sank too deep into his own head. Thorin shook himself mentally and reached out to pull him closer so he could place a kiss on his temple. Dwalin was sometimes hesitant about how far he could go with physical affection, though Thorin felt he needn’t have worried. He knew perfectly well that Dwalin was interested in him in a manner he didn’t share; he could hardly fail to notice when Dwalin woke up next to him more than half-hard, after all. Thorin was usually just amused by it, and not the least because Dwalin’s entire head blushed crimson when he was embarrassed.

“Feel like going inside already?” Dwalin murmured against his hair. “It’s getting cold in here and I won’t cut you loose if you get yourself frozen into the mountainside.”

“I haven’t been here that long,” Thorin objected, but made to get up anyway. It _was_ cold and he was starting to lose feeling in his legs, just a little. If he did stand up rather stiffly, he walked the cold out of his muscles on the trip back to their house.

They hadn’t quite sorted out their living arrangements yet, though they’d been sharing a bed for months now. Most of Dwalin’s personal belongings were still in the small rooms he had shared with Balin, but he had for all point and purpose moved in to the house Thorin shared with Dís and her sons. Balin hadn’t objected to having the rooms largely to himself, either. He had professed to having some hope that the piles of parchment he had a habit of strewing all around the place would go unmolested from now on. He might have been lying for Thorin and Dwalin’s sake, but the indulgent smile on his face had been far from the one he used when he was lying. To be honest, Balin was such a frequent guest they might have simply added another room to their house for him, but winter was bad time for building and they lacked the coin besides.

“Don’t wake the boys,” Dís warned them as they stamped the snow out of their boots and stepped inside.

“Are they already asleep?”

“Thorin, it’s nearly midnight, all sensible people are asleep,” Dís had a gift of expressing she was mentally rolling her eyes with the tone of her voice alone.

“I notice _you_ aren’t,” Thorin pointed out.

“I put my better sense aside for a moment to see if I’d have to melt the frost out of a _completely_ insensible lump of a big brother. _And_ the cousin who spent over an hour getting him back. What were you doing outside for so long anyway?”

“Brooding,” Dwalin supplied.

“Thinking,” Thorin corrected.

“That so?” Dís sounded amused. “What were you _thinking_ about then?”

“Of what a gem I have for a little sister.” Thorin replied before pulling her to a one-armed hug on impulse.

Dís’ eyebrows disappeared to her hair, but she returned the gesture nevertheless. 

“You didn’t think to drag him back before his head froze over, did you?” she said to Dwalin, failing to bite back a smile. 

“It doesn’t look that serious to me,” Dwalin grinned as he watched Thorin ruffle Dís’ hair and mess up her braids with his free hand. 

Dís retaliated swiftly by snatching a bit of soot from the fireplace and smearing it on Thorin’s face. If it weren’t for the sleeping children, the minor scuffle might have escalated to a full blown wrestling match. Seeing as they had to be quiet Thorin and Dís declared a wordless truce and ganged up to take revenge on Dwalin, who was doubled over and biting his hand trying to suppress laughter. Thorin held his arms back while Dís drew a frankly obscene rune on his head. The word was actually included in the furious stream of silent curses pouring out of Dwalin’s mouth. In the end, all three of them had to have a wash before going to bed.

Thorin could feel the brief surge of levity bleeding out of him as they settled down for sleep. After nearly forty years in Ered Luin he sometimes felt like on the road still, displaced and uncertain. Always searching but never finding the way back home. He wasn’t sure what terrified him more, the thought of feeling like this to the end of his days, or the thought of waking up one morning and feeling like he was where he belonged. Thorin usually slept on his stomach, but now he curled up on his side and wrapped his arm around Dwalin’s waist, pressing his forehead against his broad chest in a wordless request. Dwalin shifted a little and pulled him close. There was safety in Dwalin’s presence, in the gentle caress of his thumb running along his jawline and the lips pressing kisses on the top of his head. 

Thorin felt himself relax slowly and he fell asleep to the steady sound of Dwalin’s heartbeat.

**Author's Note:**

> Please tattoo responsibly.


End file.
